


whatever it takes (and i couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted)

by pratz



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pratz/pseuds/pratz
Summary: In which Tony called Carol glowing space Jesus, and Carol did her best to understand the weight of 3.2 million lives lost.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written around the time Marvel dropped the teaser video for Endgame, and there was a wild speculation that it's either Carol or Pepper that's going to rescue Tony aboard the Benatar. While I couldn't help but feeling that Cap Marv's presence in Endgame would feel too shoehorned and therefore underused, I selfishly wanted Tony to interact with Carol just like their comic book counterparts did (excluding Civil War II, of course), because, like Tony, Carol fit the Snarky Asshole with a Heart of Gold trope.
> 
> That, and I loved loved loved Bendo Mendo's Talos and Lashana's Maria.
> 
> Fast forward to Apr '19, I've watched Endgame twice. Some of my worries came true (which I'm not happy about), but for what it's worth I found it enjoyable. Think of this story as a kind of off-camera character study instead of a fix-it piece. Please do keep in mind that my editing out spoilers might not be neat.
> 
> Title's from Endgame's teaser video and Hozier's "Shrike."

 

 _Our Father who art in Heaven—_  
_Stay there_  
_And we will stay here on Earth  
_ _Which is sometimes so lovely_

—Jacques Prévert

 

 

Contrary to what she would tell the team that was named after her call sign much later, it was not her customized Earth pager’s distress call that alerted her of what she would later know as the Decimation. There was a power surge from inside her, as if her powers were wanting to break out of her skin, as if it were answering a call. Was it the Tesseract, she wondered. Then it was Talos, looking ashen as much as his green skin allowed, appearing on her personal holodeck as she was hovering above XJ-617’s atmosphere.

“Carol,” Talos croaked, as if it were his first time saying her name. His image on her holodeck then flickered, or it was Talos’ trembling that got worse. The situation room he was in was strangely too quiet. He grabbed his face, shaky fingers pinching, clawing, curling and uncurling. “Carol. What—I don’t—my—my daughter. My daughter—”

Tendrils of glaucous, almost white Alice blue energy were slithering and licking up her skin. It's her reminder of the best of Earth's sky. Million lightyears away from her home planet C-53, the tender blue so small, so gently kept in the depth of her mind and heart, grief appeared as one and the same across species: _My family. My home_. _Gone. Gone_.

-.-.-

Amidst the panic, chaos, and his grief (and hers, too), Talos briefed her as best as he could by relaying what he had gathered from his remaining intelligence on Earth, which had stayed there since their landing in 1995. Even though C-53 was the center of the cosmic purge, its ripples had reached neighboring galaxies. Even Hala was affected, and upon knowing she swallowed down a sliver of sympathy for her erstwhile abductors.

“Carol,” Talos began. Her name seemed to be the only word that he could say without an ounce of devastation filtering in. He clasped his hands behind his back. Even in his efforts to keep his back straight, she could imagine hearing his bones creak under the weigh of his people’s desolation, could imagine his silent plea for her to not rush. To understand. To stay. But what was there to understand about all this? What was here to stay for?

Talos then sighed, knowing that he, too, gave in to the same line of questions. He dropped his face to his palms, elbows on knees, murmuring to himself. His eyes were wild and tortured when he looked at her again. She would have to thank him for not trying to stop her, for not being a hypocrite, really.

He informed her that it would take 42 sulli days nonstop even with her powers to get to Earth.  _You would’ve burned out_ _all_ _your energy by the time you reach_ _C-53_ _._ _You might not even make it. Carol, it’s done_ , he didn’t say.

Talos’ wife and a small band of what was left of his command hugged her one by one when she was about to depart. _Carol, stay safe._ _Carol, s_ _tay alive_ , they didn’t say.

The Skrulls’ new homeworld was quiet. Her ears were merely ringing with words unspoken but heard still. Her name had never sounded so foreign in her alien friends’ tongue. It was, after all, an Earth name.

-.-.-

She’d expected surprise, shock even, when the occupants in the situation room turned and found her there. What she didn’t expect was how swift everyone snapped into fighting stance a second she finished asking a question of Fury’s whereabout. She recognized one of them as swiftly, though. His face was plastered all over her academy recruitment pamphlets, that’s why.

“Captain Rogers?” What the hell had happened when she wasn’t around?

The man addressed lowered his fists, but he did not relapse into a neutral stance yet. “Steve,” the man next to him spoke. Weight on heels and the balls of his feet despite the leg braces, sharp shoulders, straight back. Fellow serviceman, she concluded. _These are some capable survivors_ , she thought.

 _Lucky_ , her mind quickly corrected. _Lucky survivors_.

“Who are you?” Steve Rogers asked her.

“Carol Danvers.” It was the first time in a while she’d said her own name to Earth ears and in the language she’s native to. “Where’s Fury?” she repeated.

Rogers did not answer. Her gaze slid to the list of names on the holo monitors and their accompanying status of either missing or dead. Her body, already stiff and beat from the flight, went stiffer as she recognized Fury’s name on the list.

A quick briefing and Pepper Potts’ distraught plea later, she was en route to Louisiana. Last time she’d checked, Monica was a reserve airman at the MacDill Base, Florida. Maria’s flight school was still running. She should be safe. She must be safe, she and Monica both, or else Carol wouldn’t know what to do.

MacDill was on the highest alert, Level Delta. The whole southeastern board looked desolate, not unlike its eastern neighbor. The house in Louisiana was empty. Monica’s portrait was plastered on posters on utility poles, trees, walls. _MISSING_ , it said. _If seen or found, please contact Maria Rambeau 225-754-3010_. Missing. _Missing_.

She clenched her fists until her nails punctured the leather of her gloves and the muscles in her arms screamed from the strain. The green of her blood that dripped on the wooden floor of the Rambeaus’ porch was a reminder of her alienness. Her distance. Her loss. Maria and Monica were not safe. They were not here. This was not her Earth. She was not home.

-.-.-

Rogers and Potts sent her some coordinates in space. It was near Titan. They also gave her a name: Tony Stark. Entering the Titan orbit, her comm detector intercepted a weak radiogram. The wave was fainter than what Rogers and Potts had received previously. Primitive means, if measured by Skrull or Kree standard, but it was somewhat familiar to her because it was an Earth technology. A man’s voice, recorded and transmitted from a halted, battered spaceship. As she approached, a flicker of energy waves hit her. Her fingertips tingled. Warmth slithered from her arms to her shoulders and to her neck. Now this, she knew. It’s hers, too, after all.

The Tesseract was calling her indeed.

-.-.-

Stark wore an arc reactor that ran on an imitation of the Tesseract energy. Her energy reader put the reactor’s output at eight gigajoules per second, equal to the energy produced by eighty barrels of Earth fossil fuel. Pretty impressive for an earth technology, she thought. As malnourished and drained as Stark was, his reactor would sustain him. The Tesseract would not let its host die, just as hers did not.

She gave the reactor a little charge, jolting Stark from his lethargy. He did not remove her hand from his person, but he palmed his reactor in a protective, almost fond gesture. She took no offense. He was still a little too weakened for her liking, but he would live what’s with that kind of pep.

Behind him, the blue woman, Nebula, kept a wary eye on her.

“How far are we from home?” Stark asked.

 _An infinity away_ , she thought. “Six sulli days, I think.”

Groaning at her sketchy answer, Stark shifted. She could hear his bones protest. They’re low on food and oxygen, two that Stark needed most, but there’s a Skrull outpost about a sulli day away where they could obtain some temporary sustenance, and from thereon it’s up to her to get the ship to Earth. _Human_ medicine, however, was a different affair.

“And what’s your contingency plan now that you’ve found us? Tow us home?”

 _To Earth, not home_. “Yes.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “Just like _that_?”

She took his hand away from his reactor and tapped its glass case once, twice. Tiny blue wisps travelled from her fingers to the reactor, giving it another, smaller jolt. It hissed, as if wanting to chase its much stronger siblings.

His eyes widened. “You—”

She threw him an extra blanket. “Sleep, Stark. You need to save your energy.”

-.-.-

“You in space often?”

She knew he couldn’t see her at the hull while she’s towing the ship, but she still looked at the cockpit direction and rolled her eyes. Chatting time coming, it seemed. While Nebula was rather subdued and quiet, Stark was trying to be anything but.

Stark took her silence as confirmation. “Figures.” A coughing fit, some quiet, then another question. “Seen [Absolute Zero](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero/) yet?”

“No, but I’ve been to the [Boomerang Nebula](http://sci.esa.int/hubble/32790-the-boomerang-nebula-the-coolest-place-in-the-universe/),” she said to her comm.

“Ah, the Bow Tie.” Another cough. “Is it really one degree Kelvin?”

“Guess so.” She recalled that even _she_ , bearer of the Tesseract powers, couldn’t move in the Boomerang Nebula environment. Then again, space was cold because space, barren of atoms and molecules, [did not have temperature](https://qz.com/1125696/if-the-sun-is-so-hot-why-is-space-so-cold/)—created by the movement of atoms and molecules—in the first place. Technically, one couldn’t measure something that did not have anything to measure out. Earth, by far, was the warmest place she’d been to.

"How long have you been space cowboying?"

"[A while](https://youtu.be/DuFyGHgGIKg?t=942)."

"Met any fellow human?"

"Half-human, yes."

"You know, I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of space."

She frowned a little at that. Children, she knew, were fascinated by space. Adults who were not were often either ignorant or traumatized by something extraterrestrial. Stark didn't strike her as ignorant. What had he witnessed, she wondered. "Not many people are."

Stark was quiet for a longer while before he started again. “Not a fan of tête-à-tête much, aren’t you?" At Carol's silence, he resorted back to deadpanning. "Not complaining, by the way. You do you, glowing space Jesus.”

She let the jab fly as the ship was nearing the Kree outpost. Which, to no one’s surprise, was empty. Whether it was abandoned prior to the Decimation or its dwellers fell victim to it as well, she didn’t know, didn’t want to know. The ship creaked none too gently as she landed it on an airway. She left to recon the lone building in the outpost, found a few packages of Krylorian beans and frozen drinkable Sakaaran aloe leaves, and a dated but working holo transmitter in one of the chambers.

Punching in her codes to the transmitter, she waited for Talos to appear on the holodeck. As he recognized her grim expression, his face fell. “Oh Carol, I’m sorry.”

She didn’t think she had anything but a scream to return his sympathy, so she barreled on instead. “What did you have for me?”

Talos frowned, but he kept up. “It happened everywhere to everyone. Your people, mine, all of the universe. Half of the universe is missing indeed.” He’d refused to say _gone_ again since the first time he did. “My intel recovered some energy traces to Titan II, but I can’t confirm anything until I get more information.”

“He must be there.”

“He _might_.”

“He must be there.”

“Carol,” Talos hissed tiredly. “He still has the Stones, and he can use their powers again. You’re but one Stone power. _One_!” She stilled, and Talos flinched at his own outburst. Gradually recomposing himself, he sighed. “Look, there’s no stopping him now. If you get a hold of him, and I say this very specifically— _if you get him_ , it’s you against him _and_ the Stones.”

“Good enough for me. Subdue him, take the Stones, and get them away from him, right? So I’ll break his fingers, cut his hand, kill him. Easy does it.”

“You’ll break his fingers, cut his hand, kill him,” Talos repeated incredulously. “Will it undo anything?”

“Will doing nothing do?”

“ _I lost my daughter!_ ”

The scream reverberated in the chamber, bouncing against the wall and piercing her ears. It was in Skrullian, but she got it just the same. In the onus of a loss, language felt thin as grief undressed it. Again, she clenched her fists. Again, she felt the holes in her gloves that she herself created.

Talos looked at anything but her. “Carol, you know I’ve lost, too.” The transmitter stuttered, his image blurring. “But my people are still here. I can’t walk away from that. I know your—” he paused, hesitating though now looking at her, “you are concerned about C-53. Believe me, I know how it feels. But I’d also like to think you do know you’re more than welcome here.”

The holo flickered again.

“I will do the right thing, I promise.”

Stark eyed her suspiciously when she returned to the ship, but thankfully he said nothing when he accepted the beans and aloe leaves. He offered her an aloe leaf back, which she took with no words as well. He knew she didn't need it, she knew. Sitting next to him in the cockpit, she took a bite. She had not sat down since she got to Earth and back in space again. She hadn’t had the chance to slow down or rest either.

The aloe tasted horrible, just as she remembered. The stars were out, as ever. The cosmos was dark, as ever. Space was cold, as ever.

-.-.-

The first thing Stark did once the ship reached the team's headquarter was ripping Rogers a new hole before he collapsed to the floor, wheezing, head almost bumping into Carol’s knees. Potts transferred him to a nearby recovery room, and Rogers had holed himself in his room ever since. Carol slipped into Stark’s room when Potts left for a bathroom break. The serviceman from earlier, James Rhodes, sat next to Stark’s bed, and Rhodes raised both eyebrows as he saw her entering.

“Hey there, glowy,” Stark greeted with a rasp. “How did I do back there?”

She found it hard to not roll her eyes often around Tony Stark. “Nine out of ten for the outburst. The conking out could’ve used some more polishing, though.”

“My, she’s got some sarcastic bones in her.” Stark grinned. Then he pointed at Rhodes. “Have you met Rhodey here? He’s my favorite.”

“Tony,” Rhodes chided gently, partly out of embarrassment.

“By the way, do you want some good CliffNotes recap of our recent gigs? We can help with that. Christ, who was president when you visited last? Clinton? Bush Sr? Were the Towers still there? Christ. Rhodey, you start. I’ll jump in for the footnotes.”

Footnotes. Right. She would make sure that 3.2 million people would not be mere footnotes. She would do the right thing whatever it took. She would do the right thing.

Starting from calling 225-754-3010.

-.-.-

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Maria screamed and yelled at her on the phone, and she gave Carol instructions to find her in Orlando. She found Maria in front of the gate of what was once merry Universal Studios. The park was open, but there was no laughter, no excitement. Some of the rides were working, passengers with empty gazes sat aboard the ferris wheel and merry-go-round, and in the middle of bleak quietness was Maria. Her hair was streaked with gray, there were crow’s feet around her eyes, and she’s [wholly mortal, wholly guilty, and ](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lullaby-0)[to Carol all the more beautiful](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lullaby-0). Carol landed a feet away from her as Maria was in the process of standing up. Upon recognizing her, Maria gaped.

And because Carol was an idiot, she could only say, “Uh—hi?” Maria blinked. Then rage took over, her face twisting, and Carol had never felt more like a Vrellnexian with one brain cell. “I’m sorry—I know I’m too late—Maria, if I knew—”

“ _Carol D_ _anvers!_ ”

She snapped into attention.

Maria got to her in three strides. Carol didn’t have a chance to duck when a fist flew and hit her square in the nose. Of course, it was not her nose that suffered damage.

“Ow! Fuck!”

“Maria! Oh my god, I’m sorry—your hand—are you okay?”

The next second Maria’s arms were around her, tight to the point she could feel it. Her throat hurt, ash in her mouth. It had been a long time.

“You Grade A asshole! I was so worried! Monica was—” Maria choked and burst into tears. “Jesus Christ, Danvers, you weren’t there—I was—I was—”

She hugged back as desperately, mindful of her strength. Maria’s jacket smelled of cheap motels and dust. The bones in Maria’s shoulders were sticking out, and her hands had more wrinkles than the last time Carol saw her. Carol’s own jacket was now damp with hysteric tears. Half crouching and half sprawled on the ground, she closed her eyes and not for the first time wished she’d done things differently.

Maria pushed her away after a few minutes, but Carol kept her close, unwilling to let go yet. “When did you get back?” Maria asked.

“Four days ago. I wanted to look for you earlier, but Fury’s team made me go on a glorified fetch trip first.”

“Agent Fury? Is he—” Maria gestured randomly at the moribund theme park.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Maria leaned back to disengage fully from her. She took a deep breath. When she looked at Carol again, the rage in her eyes was waning but now was warring with pain. “But you’re here now.”

“I’m here now.”

“Look,” Maria sighed, “I’m too pissed to talk you right now, but tomorrow, please? I’m staying at this motel just ‘round the corner. Breakfast okay?”

She swallowed whatever it was that lodged her throat. “Okay.”

“Care, hey.” Maria reached out to cup her face between her palms. “This is not about putting the blame on anyone, alright? I just need some time. Just tonight. You hear me?”

She put her hands over Maria’s and nodded.

Wordlessly, Maria went back to hugging her again, tight and long, and Carol thought of how much she hated this Florida. The streets were too wide, the trees too dry, alligators everywhere, parks abandoned, house turning into vultures’ nests. Florida was not Maria’s Louisiana.

-.-.-

She tried to sleep on the _Universal_ globe before the gate but couldn’t, so she moved indoor to the _Captain America_ diner. Grey cobwebs covered most of the ceilings and tall window glasses. On the tubular outdoor seating area, a menacing likeness of Stark’s bright red suit adorned the wall. Lying down on the seats that she pushed together, she wondered if that were how he appeared in combat.

She graffitied it by adding Stark’s goatee to the mask.

It’s strange to think how once she found all of this quotidian—the necessity to get in line to get something from the food counter, the absence of danger, all the ephemeral things. When her family had only enough to send one child to college and her jerk of a father sent her oldest brother, Carol packed her bag to the Air Force Academy, Colorado. She never looked back, and even though the following years were marked by constant frustration no thanks to a stalled career, leaving was the best decision she’d ever made. Still, the bitterness and resentment remained, which sometimes made her feel undeserving when interacting with Monica. How could a child so good care about someone so messed up? Carol was good at punching things. Carol was good at leaving. Carol, however, was not good at letting go. Even as a conditioned Kree soldier, there were always echoes of her Earth self.

By daybreak, she’s sleepless and restless and wanting to just head to Maria’s motel. Floating out, she stretched and prepared to dash when her eyes caught a movement on the highest tower of the _Incredible_ _Hulk_ roller coaster.

A haggard man sat on the tower, feet swinging back and to, an empty large bottle of vodka next to him. He looked at her but didn’t register her. She approached carefully, stopping a few feet away. He nodded at her as a kind of greeting. “You a superhero?” he asked.

“You could say so.”

“Like those in New York and Sokovia?”

“Not really.”

The man nodded again. “Where you from?”

“Space.” There were places where her blond hair was thought to belong to an extinct blood line, her blue eyes a physical trait of a degenerate, the photon blasts from her hands a gift from the gods. “Well, Boston originally.”

The man hummed under his breath. “I’ve only been here for two days.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant his being on the rollercoaster tower or in Florida. “Cool.”

“It’s—” the man stopped himself, “it hurt so bad, you know. It still does. I just want it to stop. It’s been _weeks_ , for god’s sake and I still can’t. I scaled this fucking tower with no tools, and here I am still. You get me? I’m still here, because I’m still scared. Why am I still scared? What's so difficult about ending it all for good?”

“Me too,” she returned, picking at the holes in her gloves. “Scared, I mean.”

“ _You_?” the man hissed. “You’re glowing, and you can fucking fly, Boston. I bet you’ve been, what—thirty?—forever. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things, actually.” She shifted so that she could tuck one of her knees against her chest. “I’m only here because I’m lucky. I don’t know why, but it is what it is. I don’t know if I’ll be lucky again.”

The man fell silent. Carol knew she would have no problem catching him when push came to shove, but for now she’d rather wait. She remembered her training as a Kree soldier, being taught how to fight, when to relax and roll with the hits, mattress beneath her and Yon-Rogg’s studious indifference above her. There was always an opponent who only needed one strike to deal a finishing blow, a snake calculating its time before the killing leap. Sitting here next to this man reminded her of that, and even though it’s not in her nature to hide her displeasure, she could adjust and adapt.

At last, the man let out a long, defeated sigh. “Can you bring me down? I’m hungry.”

Surprisingly, Maria was at the gate when they glided to the ground. She raised her eyebrows at the man as Carol let him go carefully. The man’s knees buckled and he toppled forward, pretty well compared to how people had reacted to superpowered aliens back in Carol’s—Marvel, _not Carol_ ’s first visit to Earth. Maria caught him before he hit the ground.

“Thanks.” He straightened, turning to Carol. His eyes were clearer, or maybe it was what she’d like to believe. “And thanks to you, too, Boston.”

“Take care, man. And take it easy on the booze, yeah?”

Shrugging, the man gave a tiny wave and dragged himself toward the street, one of the too wide streets. It was only after his silhouette disappeared from sight that Carol staggered to the nearest bench and sat. Elbows on knees, she pulled at her hair as hard as she could. This kind of pain was good. Was better.

Maria sat beside her, an arm thrown around Carol’s trembling shoulders. “Still doing brave shits as ever, I see,” Maria said softly.

Carol dry heaved for a moment. Part Kree, part Tesseract, utterly human, she was not sustained by her powers alone. The pain in her chest had started to abate bit by bit. Earth’s sky looked a little bluer.

A perfect view.

-.-.-

Like Talos, Monica vehemently refused to say _gone_ when she told Carol about Monica. _We’ll find her, okay, you and I_ , Maria said like she never had a doubt about accomplishing it, about an end that did not break anyone, about Carol, Carol whom she didn’t blame for anything.

“What now, M?” she mumbled, more to herself than to Maria. Curled up in the passenger seat of Maria’s beat car, for the first time in, what, fifty sulli days, feeling kind of losing track of time, she felt like she would be able to sleep a wink.

Maria kept her eyes on the road. They were on the way to the Kennedy Space Center after a fruitless stop at Cape Canaveral. Like MacDill, the station was on the highest alert, but one quick call to Rhodes helped solve the stumbling block. Still, they had not found any information on Monica. Carol dared not to ask Maria how long she’d been on her quest to find Monica. Or, rather, a quest to convince herself that Monica was not gone—missing. _Missing_. Carol didn’t think she could hear Maria’s answer had she asked.

“Well, I’ll keep looking, and you go do your superhero thing.”

“What if it doesn’t matter?” What if she woke up to a changed world still?

“What if it does?”

“You’re so not helping,” she grumbled.

“Excuse me? Who’s driving here while you're moping?”

Ridiculous. What planet was this again? “Get a new car, M.”

Maria laughed, small, but it was the first and Carol took what she could. “Yeah, and with whose money? You gonna wire some from space?”

“I’ll see if I can ask Stark.”

“Stark? _The_ Tony Stark?” Maria’s voice rose a pitch higher. “Get. Out.”

“I’m serious. Remember the fetch trip I mentioned before? It was for him. He owed me.” She paused, realizing something. “He owes me.”

“Carol, look.” Maria stopped at a red light. She reached out across the center console to hold Carol’s hand. “There are things I can do that you can’t, and there are things you can do that I can’t. I don’t think we can play a what-if.” Carol hummed, not entirely disagreeing. Maria narrowed her eyes. “And don’t tell me to get a new car when you yourself can’t get a decent pair of gloves, space lady.”

She looked at her gloves.

The light blinked to yellow and turned to green. Maria squeezed her hand, so warm, so alive, before starting to drive again. “You start small, Avenger. Start small.”

-.-.-

A nonstop commercial flight from Orlando to Rochester took about 3.5 Earth hours. While Carol Danvers the Air Force pilot had been on combat jets that flew faster than that, Captain Marvel, she knew, flew six times the speed of sound. _You’_ _ve_ _always been_ _fast, so fast that sometimes you don’t know how to slow down_ , Maria told her. Always rushing headlong to the craze. Always a reckless pain in the ass. So she took her time instead of jetting off to Starks’ cabin.

Tony Stark had just closed the door to his study when Carol flew in through the open French windows and landed behind him.

“Jesus, Danvers!" He clutched at his chest, the faint blue glow of the reactor blinking twice as if recognizing Carol’s own energy. "Give a man some warning next time, will you!”

Tilting her head, she assessed Stark for a moment. Ever since his self-imposed exile, he had gained back the weight he lost aboard the _Benatar_. He looked older, a bit tired maybe, but better. “Have time for a quick chat?” she asked.

“Is it about work? If it is, nope. I’m a retiree, you know that, right?”

“Shut it or I’ll do it for you, tin man.”

Stark flustered but recovered quickly. “You can’t afford me, glowy, but I guess since I owe you one for the towing...” His eyes turned serious when she reached out and tapped his reactor. “What?”

“It’s part of me.” She paused. “It’s in me.” She fixed Stark a stare. “Tell your know-it-all computer to read my energy. You’ll find that my reading is similar to that of the Tesseract. Because it is. The Tesseract is part of me. I have the power of one of the Stones.”

Stark huffed. “You have to forgive me but since I got my head bulldozed just a few weeks ago, I’m afraid I’m not following.”

“Thanos is merely a wielder of the Stones. I’m not. The Stones can’t hurt me, because I’m one of them. I’ll find him, and I’ll kill him.”

Mouth agape, Stark looked at her like she was deranged. He pulled a chair and sat before her. “Damn,” he breathed out. “Using the Stones to fight the Stones, eh. You’ve got some tight game there, Danvers.”

“I’m not asking you to fight, but I need you to think of a backup plan. If,” she swallowed, “it doesn’t work.”

Stark scoffed. “Bold of you to think that this plan of yours will work.”

“You’re right. I don’t know if this will work. I used to feel the presence of other Stones on Earth—two? Three? But I’m the only one now. That’s why I need you to prepare a Plan B, because I can’t think of any.”

His eyebrows rose to an inch from his hairline. “And you trust me with—with this planning?”

She took a step toward him, tapped his reactor again. “You have this.” She didn’t mean only the reactor. She hoped Stark understood. “The point is to take the Stones from him. Break his fingers, cut his hand, or whatever, but just get them. Only the Stones can fight the Stones.” She clenched her fists, could feel the restless energy inside her rattling. “Just get the Stones,” she repeated.

Stark was uncharacteristically silent. In his chair, rubbing his greying goatee, and donning civilian clothes, he looked nowhere like the menacing figure Carol had seen at the diner in Orlando. He looked out the still open French windows. Across, the surface of the lake rippled. A fish jumped out of the water. Tall trees whispered. Still alive, still here. Carol thought to bring Maria and Monica to see more of Upstate New York. Monica loved camping. They could hike the Adirondack, maybe.

When this all ended.

Stark exhaled, a long, harrowing sigh escaping. “You’re a suicidal idiot.”

She could feel one corner of her mouth curl up in the beginning of a smile. “I’ve been told so a couple of times.”

Stark blew a raspberry. “Curse of living a superhero life.”

“I’m not—” _superhero_ , she wanted to say, because what good it was being a superhero when there were 3.2 lives lost? “Yeah, though it took me quite some time to figure it out.”

Stark looked away again. “I’ve got nightmares, Danvers. Constantly. Ever since New York, I’ve been terrified. Things that can go wrong _will_ go wrong. People can and will die, civilians, people who can’t turn into human fireworks and breathe in space, my—my friends. You can’t punch away your nightmares.”

“I know.”

What else could she say? She couldn’t punch away nightmares, not hers, not anyone’s, she knew. What was supposed to take 42 sulli days travel to Earth had ended up being longer, because she had to make several stops to vent. She leveled a few uninhibited planets and destroyed asteroids. Madness crept in and lit her limbs on fire. She wanted to lose it, unrestrained, uninhibited, a creature of rage. No control, no weakness, more powers. She wanted to cause a cosmic snap on her own. In the end, lashing out didn’t make her feel better. She’s still terrified, still unsure of anything, but she’s here, at least, and if she didn’t do anything, it’s on her.

“You know,” Stark’s voice took that hazy quality, “a Bleecker Street wizard once told me that out of 15 million chances, there’s only one where we won.”

She’d woken up from million of dreams, woken up from memories, from years’ worth of shortfalls and humiliation but also of warmth and tenderness. She’d given up keeping track of important dates, anniversaries, places, but she could remember exact things like the day she failed the rope climb exercise for the first time, or Monica jumped onto her bed the morning she was promoted to captain, or Maria’s falling asleep with the TV still on while waiting for an update about her mentees who were sent on a tour in Grenada. She and Tony Stark, they were the type of people who were not good at letting go, because they had learned to grab and hold on to whatever they could.

She wondered if he would eventually fight again, and she knew he wondered if she would ever stop, if the anger and guilt would swallow her, would force her to break. She didn’t know the answer, but chances were she would try to find out.

“You’ll be at the frontline of an essentially unwinnable war with nothing but your idiocy and bravery,” Stark said humorlessly, this man with the temper of a child and a heart too large.

She laughed, small but genuine, lighter, better. “Merely joining you there, Tony.”

“Womp, womp. Can it, you overpowered Energizer Bunny. Now, why don’t we start by getting you new gloves? Or a new suit, even? I don’t know if there’s _Vogue_ in space, but let me tell you those holes are so out of fashion.”

-.-.-

When it all ended, Nick Fury led her to his car. He sat on her left, so she could still see his good eye. He looked tired, was tired. Everybody was. From the rear window she saw the crowd of the private memorial get smaller and smaller until it disappeared. The car passed the Stark compound gate, and soon it was on the road leaving Rochester for New York.

“I can fly you faster,” she said.

“Fact, which I choose to ignore right now,” Fury replied.

She scoffed. “Still can’t believe you named them after my callsign.”

“What, and named them after _Carol_?” Fury scoffed, too. “ _Carols, assemble_ doesn’t sound badass to me.”

She looked out the window at the passing city. “Maybe you don’t need to be a badass. Maybe you just need to live.”

“Carol,” he called. “Everybody makes a choice. You did. Stark did, too.”

“We don’t always make the right choice.”

“And we don’t always make the right choice,” Fury echoed, relenting. “What matters is that you don’t regret it.” He was not talking about her, she knew. Fury reached into his coat and took a small box. He gave it to her, and she found his two-decade old customized pager inside. “Tell me I don’t have to use this any time soon, Carol.”

The universe was endless, truly, and the people she met were all so drastically different. Various coloring, weird bone structures, bizarre capabilities, shitty flavors, self-blaming, grandiose, all the Stones and maybe more, softness and harshness both. It would always be beyond everything and anything she’d ever seen.

“Why don’t we start with a simple lunch, Director? I’m in no hurry.”

She was here, on Earth, which sometimes was lovely, grieving and relieved both, saying goodbye to Tony Stark and planning a road trip with Maria and Monica, alive, surviving, living. Living. She had a heart. She was here, living. She was here.

-.-.-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've reached this part, thank you, thank you, thank you for reading. I'm ambivalent toward movie!Carol in general, but I'm doing my best to be friends with her in my headspace. Do let me know how I'm doing.


End file.
